________________________________________________________________PROCEEDING OF THE AINL-ISMW FRUCT CONFERENCE Twitter as a Transport Layer Platform Dmitry Namiot Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow, Russia [email protected] Abstract Internet messengers and social networks have every day. The company states that 80% of users on Twitter become an integral part of modern digital life. We have in mind are accessing it via a mobile device. As per official page, the not only the interaction between individual users but also a company suggests the following business areas for Twitter: variety of applications that exist in these applications. Typically, applications for social networks use the universal login system and rely on data from social networks. Also, such applications are and what the customers are interested in. Business can use likely to get more traction when they are inside of the big social Twitter search to listen to the relevant conversations that are network like Facebook. At the same time, less attention is paid to happening and jump in where a value could be added. communication capabilities of social networks. In this paper, we target Twitter as a messaging system at the first hand. We Twitter has got a flat structure for social circles. It is very describe the way information systems can use Twitter as a easy to connect with anyone. So, it is easy to start new transport layer for own services. Our work introduces a discussions (and/or join existing discussions). programmable service called 411 for Twitter, which supports Business can raise the profile and increase the impact of user-defined and application-specific commands through tweets. own marketing efforts by using Twitter to regularly communicate with own customers. For example, Twitter I. INTRODUCTION suggests extending the reach even further with Twitter Ads. All social networks nowadays offer some public The last point is especially interested in working for us. Application Program Interfaces (API). All social networks Twitter (as a company) suggests the usage of the system for offer the ability for third-party developers to build providing customer service. As per many polls, more than applications. APIs enable developers to reuse the basic 70% of Twitter users said Twitter provides them with a quick functionality of social networks in own projects. For example, way to reply to customer service issues [4]. Business can use public API for Twitter lets developers (third party Twitter to quickly and easily respond to support queries. In an applications) post new tweets, search for tweets, etc. In other education, it could give students a low-stress way to ask questions. As it is mentioned in [5], first-year and/or introverted students are less comfortable asking questions in But the main idea for the most o - class. The dynamics of Twitter allow students to feel more applications is still either share data in social networks or comfortable asking questions given the psychological barriers collect shared data. All actions are performed with the hope of inherent in online communication. Twitter could be used for the viral effect of social media. If we can make our content providing academic and personal support. It could be used for engaging, interesting and important enough, people will spread delivery information about academic enrichment opportunities it widely and our content will have a disproportionate impact. on campus (for instance, the location and hours for the tutoring For example, our own application redefined geo-check-in center) in response to student requests for help [5]. (a status message with geo-coordinates) with an idea to attract more users from the huge user base of Facebook [1]. responses. Why do not allow applications respond to queries? In this paper, we would like to discuss another aspect of It is the main topic for our paper. The core idea is very social networks software. Social media besides data sharing transparent. All social media in addition to the exchange of (or more precisely for data sharing support) should maintain data (to be exact - for its support) should provide some form of the connectivity between own users. Social media engagement a link between its users. If users are spending more and more is a core part of any social media strategy. Users (especially, time on social networks, is it possible to use the connecting mobile users) spend more and more time in social media. As mechanisms of the social media for delivering to users in per [2], 94% of first-year college students use social social media data from other applications? It is not about networking websites. These data are congruent with more programming for social networks. It is about data delivery via recent statistics on social networking website use and reinforce social networks. It is about the embedding data transfer the fact that social networking is an important part of college mechanisms from social networks (social media) into existing applications. real-time information network where people can discover ormation The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section II, instantly and connect with people and businesses around the we briefly describe Twitter API. In Section III, we discuss the globe [3]. Twitter has over 300 million monthly active users. related projects. And Section IV is devoted to our Twitter 411 As per official statistics, 500 million tweets (messages) sent approach. ISBN 978-952-68397-0-7 (paperback), ISBN 978-952-68397-1-4 (PDF) ________________________________________________________________PROCEEDING OF THE AINL-ISMW FRUCT CONFERENCE II. T WITTER API Technically, there are two ways to We have mentioned Twitter due to several reasons. Twitter to the particular account. At the first hand, it is so- Historically, public API (Application Program Interface) for Twitter was one of the most popular social APIs across social for the targeted account. And the second way is so-called web developers. Twitter is a social media and a network direct messages. In this case, the status (message) has got an messenger in the same time. Since its launch in 2006, Twitter immediate recipient. The main difference is the visibility. The has become one of the most important social properties on the mentions (replies) are potentially visible for other readers, the web. Actually, Twitter promoted the growth and engagement direct messages are private. of third party websites through its API. There are two main offerings in Twitter API interested for our tasks: REST API and Streaming API. The REST APIs provides programmatic access to read and write Twitter data. It is possible, for example, to publish a new identifies Twitter applications and users using OAuth; responses are available in JSON [6]. The Streaming APIs continuously deliver new responses to REST API queries over a long-lived HTTP connection. It lets receive updates on the latest Tweets matching a search query, stay in sync with user profile updates, etc. Connecting to the streaming API requires keeping a persistent HTTP connection open. The difference from REST API is illustrated in figures 1 and 2 [7]. Fig. 2. Twitter Streaming API [7] III. RELATED WORKS As a basic prototype model for our service, we used the well-known scheme of a functioning of information services based on Short Message Service (SMS). How does this model work? There is a certain service number, where incoming messages could be processed programmatically (by the Technically, this is an ordinary telephone number to which you can send SMS. In the simplest case, for this kind of system, we can use a regular cell phone and a so-called data Fig. 1. Twitter REST API model [7] cable. The phone can be connected with the computer and receive from him the standard AT- command. With these In REST API an application (e.g., a web application) commands, we can read incoming SMS, programmatically process them and send the answers (also with the help of AT- API, then formats and prints the result to the user, as a commands) [8]. response to th The whole model is the classic question-answer system. An application which connects to the Streaming APIs will Users send queries via SMS text and receive answers via SMS not be able to establish a connection in response to a user too. If the text of the response exceeds 140 characters, it can request. Instead, the code for maintaining the Streaming be designed as a web page. The link to that page (as an connection is typically run in a process separate from the original or short URL) could be sent as a response. All process which handles HTTP requests. In Fig. 2. we have two existing SMS-customers on mobile phones detect links in server processes, where one process receives streamed Tweets, emails and let you open them directly from the text. while the other handles HTTP requests. The issue of payment for such access to information is, of course, not a primary question. Technically, this scheme of limits and REST API limits are completely separate entities. SMS processing does not depend on charging. Usually, this So, obtaining entities via a streaming API doesn't consume any kind of services are designed for specific tasks (information REST API rate limits. systems) [9,10]. At the same time, there are a kind of toolbox In our project, we propose the customized replies to (development tool system), which allow to design this kind of messages (statuses) in Twitter for any selected account. services [11]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 47 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________PROCEEDING OF THE AINL-ISMW FRUCT CONFERENCE In general, such a model can be described as the XMPP protocol and tools, based on this protocol have a deployment of SMS as the transport layer in information long history of data delivery automation (chat bots, for systems. Of course, instead of SMS, we can use multimedia example) [20].